April Johnstone

April Johnstone Gallery

April was yet another Scottish model, not from Lowlands Ayrshire this time but from real Scotland − the Highlands. She was a very glamorous secretary, semi-pro dancer and ice-skating champion according to the accompanying blurb, but whether that’s true or not she was a very attractive photographic model with a great figure and really good legs.

She was not seen in print as often as she undoubtedly should have been. What is more, three of those appearances were in the mid-1960s and the remaining two ten years later – and they were reprints and unpublished shots from the earlier material. These facts pose an interesting, if unanswerable, question – why? April had a pretty enough face, a great figure, really good legs and a bubbly personality. And in at least three of the sequences, she is wearing the same outfit (if you can call it that) of skimpy white suspender belt, bra and knickers − and at the same location; which suggests all the photos were taken on the same shoot. Did she try it a couple of times and not like it? Did photographer Fullarton not like her, or even manage to upset her in some way? Did her boyfriend give her a hard time about what she was doing to earn some money?

Whatever the answers, it is a crying shame we did not get more of April Johnstone.